Site
26 looking south to the Ox Mountains, where the neolithic cairns of Doomore and Croughan are visible.
Circle 27 is to the right of the photograph.

Circle 26

Circle 26
is located outside the main group around the visitor centre at Carrowmore.
It is just beside the road, in the same field as Site
27, as you approach Carrowmore from the south. The boulder circle
is 17 meters in diameter, and the stones were placed on a stone packing
to keep the boulders level. The circle is complete, with all it's 34 stones
present, but 4 of the stones have been displaced. One large stone, on
the southeast side was removed and pushed back to make an entrance in
the Bronze age.

Several
loose boulders around the circle may be the remains of a small dolmen
which was dismantled during the remodelling. One of the loose stones is
a split boulder, which was often the type of stone used for a capstone
at Carrowmore.

This is
one of several sites that was excavated by Burenhult's team in 1978 and
1979. They found that the site had been reused in the Bronze and Iron
ages.

Site 26: Dr. Burenhult leads a tour and discusses the excavation of this
monument during the Stones and Bones conference in 2001.

Four postholes
were found within the circle by the gap at the southeast. There was probably
some kind of a wooden entrance structure built here. Furrows were found
within the western side of the circle, and 10 pits which contained charcoal
and burnt stone. A ditch was dug around the inside of the circle, but
did not cross the gap in the southeast. These activities took place around
500BC.

Dr. Burenhult's photomontage of Site 26.

An inhumation
was placed in a pit at the centre of the circle around 90 BC. Finds from
this circle include 1.5 kg cremated bone and an antler pin. Other materials
found were more cremated bone, unburnt bones belonging to humans, cattle,
hare and duck; a grinding stone, a potsherd, some blue glass beads and
some burnt grains, which were mainly barley.

No. 26: - Borlase

Situated to the S. of 25, and near the road, (dolmen-circle). "This
circle is nearly perfect, but wants the cromleac or kistvaen. The stones
are large, and, as usual, placed quite close to each other. They are thirty
eight in number, and the diameter of the circle is 50 feet" - Petrie.